Insatiable III - Aug 15

These days, both ‘C&D’ and ‘Reverie’ are over. Boo, but at least we can always download ‘C&D’ from Freeform™ and co., so there is that. Moreover, ‘Runaways’ S2 is coming in December 2018, and ‘The Gifted’ S2 – in September 2018, (and DCEU’s ‘Titans’ are coming in autumn 2018 as well), so there is that. Anything else?

Firstly, apparently, the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ film was made based on all three novels of KK’s original trilogy, so it is different from the books. Yay? Probably, because the original novels didn’t go down so hot, at least not in Canada: they were being sold at a flat rate of $15 a book, and people weren’t buying them, regardless of all the excitement that Indigo and KK’s team tried to make of them. Right now, there’s a lot of talk as to how the movie will make or break the Asian-American flow in Hollywood…so, apparently, this puts the film on the level with the first transgender woman succeed in the U.S. politics at last…and this, technically, brings us back to ‘Insatiable’.

Why are we still kicking this dead horse? Probably because of Debbie Ryan, who seems to have become the latest young actress that is trying to survive in her post-Disney era. There’s Miley Cyrus, who burned her bridges with Disney so much, that no one remembers ‘Hannah Montana’ anymore; there’s Selena Gomez, for whom Disney took ‘The Wizards of Waverly Place’ and made it into her own show; and now there’s Debbie, who started her acting career in ‘The Suite Life on Deck’ portion of ‘The Suite Life’ series with the Sprouse twins, and where’s ‘The Suite Life’ now? Gone, just as ‘Hannah Montana’, ‘The Wizards’ and ‘Jessie’ are. ‘Jessie’ is the show that made Debbie into a lead actress, not one of several, as ‘The Suite Life on Deck’ did, BTW, but now it is also gone. Disney does have this trait – once a show is done, it is done, and everyone goes their separate ways. There was a crossover between ‘The Wizards’, ‘The Suite Life’ and ‘Hannah Montana’, and nothing came out of it. ‘Jessie’ got crossed with both ‘Good Luck Charlie’ and ‘Austin and Ally’ – ditto. Even before Disney teamed up with Marvel to manifest MCU, it tried to do something similar with its’ YA TV shows… but it didn’t quite work, most likely because Disney didn’t really want to commit entirely to it too.

…However, this was then. What now? Now Debbie, (known in this incarnation as Patty instead), is starring in ‘Insatiable’, a TV show that is supposed to be fat-positive, but comes across as fataphobic instead. Put more precisely, it sucks. On one hand, it deals with Debbie’s character in a not-very-funny way, the fat suit isn’t bad, but the jokes? They can be tone-deaf, and that is really ‘Insatiable’s’ true problem: it does not understand the material that it tries to address. It tries to be fat-positive, LGBTQ+ positive, and so on, but it comes across as phobic at worst and clichéd at best instead. There are all of the fat-related issues, and then there are the ‘me too’ issues: for a large part of the released episodes Patty is in not a relationship with an older man, who has been accused, (falsely or not is another issue), of molesting a teenage girl already, and the show makes it into a joke. Great. Lately there has been a report of Catholic priests also harassing teenagers across the U.S. and the pope has done nothing. Oh, how we are laughing!

That is probably the other reason as to why ‘Insatiable’ is failing, (it made 13% on Rotting Tomatoes site or some similar number) – it has bad timing; Netflix, or whoever it was behind the mental works of ‘Insatiable’ failed to realize the reality of the world where ‘Insatiable’ was going to be released into, and viewed.

No, seriously – for months now, the American in particular, and the Western in general, society was dealing with the ‘me too’ movement and what it means to both men and women, both personally and professionally. It is a thorny, complex, complicated issue, and the current political climate isn’t making it any better – and then along comes ‘Insatiable’ where Patty seems to be going into a very murky relationship with Bob, the pageant coach, while another student, Brick, is sleeping with an older woman. Just what the scriptwriters were thinking? That it will be funny? Why?

…Maybe at another time – yes, but here and now – no, just no, and this probably brings us back to the rebooted ‘Ghostbusters’, because they are in the same boat: an assumption was made that they will succeed, because the original movie was a success, and all that the new movie had to do was to gender flip its’ characters – and it didn’t work. The movie itself was a flop, and the ‘Ghostbusters’ franchise itself experienced a backlash; the same thing happened with an equally unsuccessful reboot of the ‘Gilmore Girls’ franchise, to a point where it was abandoned, as are the ‘Ghostbusters’. SW, who is also experiencing franchise-related issues, are so far holding more strongly, there are rumors of an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie already. Considering that the Solo movie made only tens of millions of dollars, rather than the hundreds expected by Disney and co., I should not, and will not make any hopeful or positive predictions just yet.

Finally – speaking of rumors – there is one regarding a ‘Frozen 2’ movie. Well, no, it is not a rumor anymore, ‘Frozen 2’ is really in the works, and is scheduled to release in November 2019. Good for them, but because of its’ success, and the popularity of Elsa’s character, there might be some tough times ahead – too many people think that Elsa should be heterosexual, or homosexual, or asexual, and so, however Disney will depict her in ‘Frozen 2’, there will be upset people, and Disney hates upsetting people, because it means losing revenue – but that is all in the future.

And for now? This is all. See you all soon!